Red Cross Red Crescent best practice in Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) to prevent, prepare for and respond to epidemics in West Africa

Preparing for and preventing epidemics

Preventing outbreaks of disease is a key priority for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Stopping an outbreak before it spreads out of control saves lives, protects livelihoods and supports long term development.

The year 2015 marked the 10th anniversary of the Global Shelter Cluster, the inter-agency coordination mechanism for shelter response. During these ten years, coordination has improved in consistency, shelter responses have grown in scale, and there are more people with experience in shelter programming, but people continue to lose their dwellings and be displaced due to conflict and natural disasters. Global humanitarian shelter needs continue to greatly exceed the capacity and resources to respond.

(MissionNewswire) Don Bosco Foyer in Porto-Novo, the capital city of Benin, serves boys and girls in very complex situations, including youth who have been abandoned by their families, victims of abuse and those who are victims of forced marriages. The organization received funding from a donor through Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco, to help support Salesian missionaries’ work with street children.

Emergency aid and reconstruction measures supported by Switzerland directly benefit around three and a half million people a year.
Given their scale and tragic consequences, Swiss Humanitarian Aid has focused its attention on the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. (p. 8)

2009 brought long rains to Benin leading to 43 of 77 communes (districts) reporting widespread flooding, resulting in the Government of Benin requesting United Nations (UN) assistance. Initial Government figures estimated that over 2,000 families had been displaced due to the floods.

MapAction was consequently deployed as part of a United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team to provide GIS and mapping assistance.

Lessons drawn from evaluations can improve understanding of what constitutes good development, and what works and what does not, for both CIDA staff and partners who design and implement international development projects. Incorporating these lessons into our operations will also give Canadian taxpayers better value for their tax dollars.

To assist households recover from the 2010 floods in Benin, CRS-Benin and partner Caritas Benin are working in the Mono department via Project HHELP (Helping Households in Emergencies with Local Purchase) and SAVE2 (Saving Assets with Vouchers in Emergencies) to provide assistance to households in the form of vouchers for food and agricultural tools and seeds. The interventions of Project HHELP began in June and will continue until October 2011, while Project SAVE2 began in May and will continue until January 2012.

The past two decades have delivered unprecedented progress and improvements in quality of life across the developing world. Poverty has fallen in most developing countries, and the number of low-income countries fell from 60 in 2003 to just 39 in 2009. Countries such as India and (particularly) China have managed to lift very large numbers of people out of extreme poverty. Progress has not been restricted to increases in income; many developing countries have also dramatically improved their access to vital services, such as education and health.